


A Rose, By Any Other Name

by iwillpaintasongforlou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 1920's, Alternate Universe - Mob, Barebacking, Bottom Harry, M/M, Mafia AU, Top Louis, blowjobs while someone else is in the room, harry is a simple boy from texas, louis likes to spoil harry, mob boss louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:35:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillpaintasongforlou/pseuds/iwillpaintasongforlou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I don’t understand, Mr. Tomlinson,” Harry says quietly.</i>
</p><p><i>“You don’t have to understand, sweetheart.” Louis reaches over and runs his thumb across Harry’s cheekbone, watching the boy’s breathing pause as he dares not move beneath the touch of this strange, imposing man. “All you need to know is that you work for me now, and that I’m going to keep you safe from all the bad people in this city, you hear?”</i><br/>.....................<br/>Louis Tomlinson is the head of New York City's mafia, and Harry is the beautiful boy from Texas who falls in with the wrong crowd (which turns out to be the right crowd).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated birthday to my dear heart Hallie Jueveniall on tumblr!! Sorry it took so long to finish this up, but I'm hoping it's worth the wait <3
> 
> Housekeeping notes: This takes place in the **1920's** in NYC, back when booze was illegal and the Italian mafia ran most of the major cities of the east. Please forgive any historical inaccuracies (why is it impossible to get a straight answer on when condoms were invented?) as all of my research was simple googling! If anything's amiss just squint your eyes and ignore it ;)
> 
> Also, in regards to the **graphic depictions of violence** tagged for: there are several instances of characters (not the boys, just side characters) being shot or killed. The scenes aren't _gory_ per se, but there are mentions of blood and the violence does happen "on-screen," so please be careful if these things trigger you! 
> 
> Other than that... enjoy!

Louis had never really been one to appreciate the desert. He was a city boy through and through, raised in the streets of New York with the world whipping by him a mile a minute and life absolutely everywhere. The desert was too still, too lifeless, too barren for a man like Louis. He wanted nothing to do with a place full of cacti and tumbleweeds and little else.

But even the desert sometimes gives birth to a rose.

That’s what Louis called him, his Texas rose. It fit the curly-haired boy who stumbled into his office one day on accident, with his skin as soft as petals and lips as pink, too. He was a gorgeous bloom dripping with southern charm that Louis wanted to lick right off of him, and either Harry or Louis or both were doomed the moment he walked through that door because Louis Tomlinson does not give up on things that he wants.

“Can I help you?” Louis says in surprise as the boy blinks languidly down at him from the doorway. He’s leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk looking every inch the terror that he is, but somehow the intruder doesn’t look intimidated-- which is the first clue that he’s out of place.

The second comes the instant he opens his mouth. “Good afternoon,” he announces in a slow, thick voice with a hint of deep southern drawl. “I’m here to see a gentleman about employment, I believe his name is Mr. Duchamp. Have I come to the right place?”

It feels like it takes him a century to get it out, every word so careful and calm and polite. He’s got charm in every syllable and pore, and Louis is positively mesmerized. “Well my name is Tomlinson not Duchamp and the employment offices are ‘cross the street but yes, baby, you did come to the right place,” Louis whips out, staccato, his quick Manhattan lilt seeming even rougher compared to the stranger’s honey tones. “Don’t tell me a boy so pretty as you is at a loss for a job?”

Green eyes flicker demurely to the floor. “I’m not sure any job I’d have because I’m pretty is a job I’d much want, sir.”

“Well that’s true enough,” Louis replies, trying to slow his rush of words to match a little better. “Men who like pretty boys aren’t to be trusted.” He stands slowly from his chair and circles the desk, perching on the edge closest to the doorway where the stranger still lingers. “What’s your name?”

“Harry Styles,” the answer comes at once. “Pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Harry Styles. Where you from?”

“Texas. Small town out in the desert.”

“Well aren’t you an oasis,” murmurs Louis. His eyes travel from stunning face down lanky body, all wrapped up in a simple linen shirt and faded blue jeans, down to the worn cowboy boots on his feet and back up again without a hint of embarrassment when he realizes Harry’s watching him. “What kind of work are you looking for, Harry?”

It’s only now that Harry falters, realizes that it isn’t normal to hang around chatting with strangers who aren’t the person you came to see. “I uh- I apologize, I didn’t mean to intrude. I should really be off to see Mr. Duchamp now-”

“What, so he can set you up with a job breaking your back with manual labor like some chump?” Louis scoffs, taking Harry by the elbow and tugging him inside so he can shut the office door behind them. “You’re better than that, Texas, sit down. _Sit,_ Harry Styles, I don’t like to say things twice.”

Harry sits in the chair before Louis’ desk, though he looks a little dazed. “Well I didn’t expect a glamorous job when I moved here, but I have to make a living, sir,” he says after a moment, tone still measured and polite. “I’m not above labor.”

“Nonsense, labor is absolutely beneath you. You think I’m going to let you get your lungs black in some coal mine somewhere? You insult me, Harry, you insult my hospitality.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Harry says carefully, “but you don’t even know me.”

He’s right, technically, but Louis doesn’t care much about right or wrong except to note that he is _always_ right. “I don’t know you,” he assents, “but I want to. You’ll work for me. A position has just opened up in my office, coincidentally.”

“Oh.” Harry doesn’t seem to know how to respond except to stare at Louis with wide, startled eyes. “What position?”

“The position of whatever fucking moron let you wander back here without asking you your business-- I mean for Christ’s sake what if you’d been a _fed--_ Liam!” Louis finishes with a shout and takes half a second to inhale before barreling onwards. “Good help is fucking impossible to find these days, I swear every new hire is dumber than the last. You’ve got brains though, I can tell. Listen, you’ll --Liam, I swear to God get your ass in here!-- you’ll be a receptionist of sorts, yeah? You sit in the lobby and you answer the phone and you screen everyone that walks in to make sure they’re supposed to be here. You do that and I pay you generously, understand?”

“I don’t -no, not really?” Harry stammers, brow pulled together in confusion. “What do you mean about the feds?”

Louis is just about to not-answer when the door opens and in walks Liam, a tall, burly man with soft eyes but taut muscles. “Yes, sir?” He catches sight of Harry a second later and narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Who the fuck is he?”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Louis snaps, “he’s my fucking guest. Who’s working the front desk?”

“Sorry, sir. Markie, sir.”

“Markie’s fired, Harry’s working front desk. You tell Markie if I see his no-good face again I’m putting him in the river, understand?” Liam mutters another _yes, sir_ and closes the door behind him, and Louis refocuses his attention on Harry once more. “You know how to use a gun, Harry?”

“Do I- do I _what?”_ Harry’s voice finally loses that calm cadence, shooting up an octave as his eyes go wide. “Now hold on a minute, what’s going on here? Why do I need a gun to be a receptionist? Why don’t you want feds here? Who is Markie and why in _heaven_ are you putting him in a --a river? I don’t know what kind of job you think you’re hiring me for, Mr. Tomlinson, but I assure you, there’s been a mistake.”

Louis holds up his hand to halt the gush of words, then sighs quietly. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts --a luxury Manhattan rarely affords him-- and scratches his chin in consideration of how best to proceed. “Have you ever lived in the city, Harry?”

“No sir.”

“Didn’t think so,” Louis answers with a little smirk. “Too much innocence in you still. Listen, Harry, the city is full of bad people, hear? People that like to take advantage of others. People that like to hurt you and steal what you earned. This is a big city full of a lot of bad people, and people like me-- we protect the city from them, see? It isn’t easy and it sure as hell ain’t glamorous but that’s my job, Harry, to protect this city from very bad people.”

“I don’t understand, Mr. Tomlinson,” Harry says quietly.

“You don’t have to understand, sweetheart.” Louis reaches over and runs his thumb across Harry’s cheekbone, watching the boy’s breathing pause as he dares not move beneath the touch of this strange, imposing man. “All you need to know is that you work for me now, and that I’m going to keep you safe from all the bad people in this city, you hear?”

There’s still a touch of uncertainty in the furrow of Harry’s brow, but he nods regardless. “Yes, sir.”

………………..

It takes Harry all of two days to figure out that he’s become the latest employee of the finest and most expansive mob in the history of New York City.

It isn’t hard to put the pieces together, when he’s barely been behind the front desk when Liam comes over and teaches him how to load, aim, and shoot a gun, or when he finds himself signing for deliveries of liquor bottles packaged in crates marked ‘flour.’ It isn’t hard at all, not when he’s watched nervous man after countless nervous man walk in and hand over an envelope fat with cash addressed ‘to Mr. Tomlinson, for the month of April.”

It takes him less time than that to figure out that Mr. Tomlinson --Louis Tomlinson, as he comes to find out-- is not the kind of man who sees to many matters himself. Only two people seem to come and go from his office, one being his personal bodyguard Liam and the other his second-in-command, Zayn Malik. Zayn is a quiet man with dark features and an imposing presence, acting as go-between and right hand of the fair young mob boss. If anyone wants to see Louis Tomlinson, it seems, they have to go through Zayn.

Which makes it all the more odd that Harry often finds himself the subject on which that blue-eyed gaze falls. Mr. Tomlinson has a habit of strolling from his office during the slow hours and coming to lean against the counter before Harry and watch him curiously, examining the way he staples papers or licks envelopes with apparent fascination.

In all honesty, it’s a little disconcerting.

“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Tomlinson?” Harry finally works up the nerve to prompt one day about a week into his employment.

The man hums once absentmindedly, then seems to stir from his trance to look at Harry more carefully. “Where are you staying, Harry?”

He hasn’t answered the question, but then he rarely does. “At a shelter three blocks over,” Harry says easily. “I spent most of my money on the train fare here. I’m hoping after a few paychecks to have enough to rent a place.”

Louis’ standing up straight by the time the word ‘shelter’ is out of Harry’s mouth. “What do you take me for, an animal? Zayn! Harry, you work for me, you don’t stay in any shelter, understand?”

Zayn appears from around the corner, eyebrows raised. “Sir?”

“What’s the name of that Jewish man with the apartment building-- the one who missed February?”

“Goldberg, I believe. I’ve been informed he’s repaid his debt in full after our talk with him.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for interest. He rents a room to Harry now, understand? No rent. If he charges Harry a penny then so help me God-”

“Consider it handled,” Zayn interrupts, even daring to crack a smile at his boss. “Take a deep breath, Lou, I hear you.”

“Harry’s been staying at a shelter like I’m some kind of animal who doesn’t provide for his people,” their leader continues, calmer in tone but no less affronted. “I don’t care what they say in Brooklyn, I am _not_ an animal.”

It takes a moment amidst all the conversation --Harry often finds himself several sentences behind, still unused to the lightning pace of speech here in the city-- but eventually Harry finds the presence of mind to interject. “Please, Mr. Tomlinson, that isn’t necessary,” he protests earnestly. “I’m fine staying at the shelter until I can pay my own way.”

The man rounds on him at once, frown etched into his features. “Harry, what did I tell you on the first day you met me? What was the only thing I said you needed to know?”

It’s clear as can be in Harry’s memory, whirlwind of a day though it was. “You said that I work for you now, and that you’re going to keep me safe from bad people.”

“You’re doing your job,” Mr. Tomlinson announces with finality. “I’m doing mine.”

And Mr. Tomlinson does appear to take that job very seriously, because of the dozens upon dozens of people who come through the office every day as agents of their organization, none seems to be wanting for anything. They all have shoes on their feet and caps on their heads, full bellies and rosy cheeks. No matter how vast his system of underlings, he has apparently found a way to serve them all and keep them as safe and as comfortable as he’d promised.

But generous though his big city benefactor is, Harry can’t help but think that duty to protect can’t account for the little gifts the mysterious man keeps giving him. A snazzy new suit makes its way to Harry’s desk during week two, followed by cologne on week three. Harry could almost pass it off as an investment in making sure that the receptionist greeting all the visitors looks (and smells) good enough to represent the organization, if it weren’t for the sleek black box of chocolate-covered berries from week four. Those, he’s fairly certain, Mr. Tomlinson only buys him so he can watch the dark juices stain Harry’s lips.

…………………

It’s been a month now since Harry’s been working for Louis. He comes in every day with his slow words and easy smiles, batting his eyelashes lazily and blushing whenever he notices Louis watching. Which Louis does, and often-- more and more he finds himself leaving the quiet solitude of his office to loiter in the lobby, where visitors can see him and, more importantly, he can see those lovely green eyes.

It’s late, far later than Louis usually cares to work, but there’s been a lot of contrary activity going on his city and Louis doesn’t like to leave business unhandled. Almost everyone’s gone home for the night, save Liam dozing in the corner of Louis’ office and Harry manning the front desk. Part of his job involves staying until everyone else leaves and locking up, and as the hours drag into tomorrow, Louis hears less and less noise coming from the lobby.

Carefully, he picks his way over Liam’s feet to grab a decanter from the server near the door. He’s about to pour himself a drink when he pauses, takes two glasses in one hand and the decanter in the other, and slips into the hallway. Harry lifts his head from its resting place in the nest of his arms as Louis approaches. “Good evening, sir.”

“Sorry to keep you so late, Harry,” Louis says quietly, coming over to set the glasses and decanter on the desk. He tugs a chair over next to Harry and drops into it wordlessly.

“It’s the least I can do. You pay my rent and keep food in my mouth,” comes the modest reply.

“And liquor besides,” Louis cheerfully adds, unstoppering the decanter and pouring a healthy serving into both glasses. He nudges one closer to Harry. “Go on, then, drink up. Young, beautiful men like you ought to toast to their own charms once in a while.”

Harry picks up his glass and swirls the contents thoughtfully. “Mr. Tomlinson,” he murmurs, “if I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to liquor me up.”

“Harry, if you knew me better, you wouldn’t have a doubt.” Louis raises his own glass to his lips and takes a deep swallow, checking to make sure Harry’s smiling as he sets it back on the desk. “Do you not drink, then?”

The smile widens into a grin and Harry’s eyelashes flutter as he huffs a silent little laugh. “I’m from the south, sir, I like my liquor well enough.”

“I thought as much. Tell me, Harry, what else do southern boys with sweet smiles and slow words like?”

It wasn’t meant to be a purr --at least, Louis’ hadn’t set out to purr heavy words at Harry-- but Harry’s breath catches just the same. His fingers stop playing at the rim of his glass, his eyes lock on Louis like he can’t pull them away. It might be a trick of the light, or his pupils might be blown a little wider than usual. “I like a great deal of things, sir,” he says after a moment, perfectly still.

Louis lets the tension settle into his skin, leaning forward in his seat. “Tell me,” he whispers.

There’s a moment, right before, where they both know they’re going to kiss. Harry lets out the tiniest of sighs while Louis holds his breath, waiting, letting Harry be the one to lean in and press their lips together.

He’s got a soft mouth, a warm mouth, one that makes Louis lean in for more like instinct. His tongue darts out to taste the curve of Harry’s lip --sweet, so sweet-- and feels a hand slip into his hair to pull him closer. Something flutters in Louis’ gut. The kiss deepens and Louis finds his fingers trailing reverently down Harry’s throat, across his collarbones, down his chest and to his waist to pull him close, until Harry is fumbling gracelessly to lean into him and nearly tumbles to the floor except that Louis is there to catch him by the waist.

“Careful,” Louis murmurs. “Careful, babydoll, you’ll break.”

The sound of Louis’ voice seems to snap Harry out of a daze, and suddenly he’s looking at Louis rather seriously. “I suppose this explains all the presents.”

“Can’t blame a man for spoiling the object of his affection,” answers Louis easily. “Money well spent.”

“Tell me you didn’t just hire me because you were attracted to me,” Harry insists. “Tell me that wasn’t the only reason.”

Louis spares the time to laugh at the pout on Harry’s face before leaning in to kiss him once more and murmur his reply against petal-soft lips. “It wasn’t the _only_ reason.”

…………………

Harry refuses to stop working the lobby no matter how hard Louis insists, and the fact that Louis lets him stand up to him like that is probably a testament to just how incredibly whipped he is for those six feet of lanky southern charm.

In Louis’ opinion, the beloved partner of New York City’s crime boss shouldn’t have to work. He should be at home, or at a party, or doing something ridiculous and extravagant that Louis can pay for to make Harry smile. It’s really only fair, considering that he hasn’t been this happy in far too long to remember. Harry, however, disagrees. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the way Louis buys him fur coats or bouquets of roses --if Louis wants to spoil him that’s really his prerogative-- but Harry came here with nothing to his name intending to make a life for himself and that does not include sitting on his ass all day and letting a man take care of him.

The argument never quite dies down, though, not even when Louis is visiting Harry in his tiny apartment late one night. “I already feed you and clothe you and make sure you live rent-free,” Louis reasons as he nibbles at Harry’s jaw. “Why won’t you let me take your job away, too?”

“Because you -ah, fuck,” Harry groans with great difficulty, mostly because he’s on his back in bed with Louis deep inside of him and that makes it very hard to do anything but claw at Louis’ back and focus on breathing. “Because you already do all of that. Let me have just this one thing. A man ought -oh, Christ!- to work for what he has in this world.”

“I don’t think it counts if the man you’re trying to be independent from is the same one who signs your paychecks,” Louis points out as he snaps his hips forward a little faster. “I’m just saying, babydoll, why won’t you let me take care of you?”

Harry heaves a sigh and pushes at the hand holding onto his hips rather insistently. “If you want to take care of me then fucking take _care_ of me.”

Louis grins and does as he’s told, and it’s barely a dozen strokes of Harry’s cock before he’s jamming his eyes shut and coming, spilling all over Louis’ hand and his own overheated skin. Louis follows soon after, digging his nails into Harry’s hips and filling him up as he crushes their mouths together in a desperate kiss.

For a minute they just kiss and breathe and let their hearts settle back to a somewhat normal pace, before finally Louis pulls out and stumbles from the bed to retrieve his trousers from the floor. “Lou, where are you going?” Harry protests, too tired to do more than give an offended pout from the pillows. “Did you seriously just come here to fuck me and then leave?”

“I’ve got work to do, baby, I can’t stay,” Louis replies, and he does at least sound genuinely sorry about that. “You know, if you were to move in with me, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

Harry waits until Louis has pulled his shirt back on and puckers his lips for a kiss, which Louis gladly leans over the bed to give him. “Mmm. You just want me a kept man, waiting around all day for you in your bed. Not gonna happen, Louis.”

“You caught me,” groans Louis in mock defeat, then kisses Harry once more. “No, but I see what you mean, about wanting to have something for yourself. I respect that, baby. Of course I’m not going to push you to give up your job or your apartment or whatever else you want to keep as your own.”

“Really?”

“Really. Besides, if you’re at home in my bed all day, that means I don’t get to see you every time I walk out into the lobby.” Harry giggles just a little, and Louis brushes the hair back from his forehead and plants a kiss there with a knowing little smile. “Get some sleep, my rose. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

…………………

Louis’ least favorite part of being a mob boss, for sure, is all of the politics. There’s so much playing nice with other powerful men, so much pretending like they’re anywhere close to being as powerful as Louis himself, and that’s just exhausting. Throw in a game of poker that he clearly is only winning because everyone else is letting him win, and it all added up to a very cranky Louis.

“Harry, baby, just come with me!” he’s pleading with Harry as he ties his tie and then crookens it just so for the sake of aesthetics. “All you’ll have to do is sit there and look darling and --I don’t know, eat some snacks if you want.”

“Don’t you have employees you can pay to sit around and eat?” Harry yawns from his place on Louis’ couch, attempting to burrow down further into the cushions.

“Well technically you _are_ my employee still, and besides, I’m not in love with them so their presence isn’t going to stop me from killing anybody.”

Harry just beams. It’s been months and months now since they’ve started saying the ‘l’ word but it still makes Harry’s heartbeat flutter to hear, which is probably why it doesn’t take much further convincing for Harry to find himself in a nice suit with Louis putting a flower crown atop his curls (“Like I said, looking darling!”) and tugging him along to the monthly poker game meeting.

Louis sweeps into the room like a twister, stirring up dust and whipping the collection of fat, aging men to their feet as they all hurry to dip their heads in respect and kiss Louis’ cheek. He never lets go of Harry’s hand, pulling him along in the wake of the storm until finally he takes his seat at the head of the table and pulls his boy down right into his lap.

“Lou, you want us to bring in another chair?” one man, a notoriously violent gangster named Max, asks with a nod in Harry’s direction. “I can send Tommy to find another chair for your-- uh, companion.”

“Harry doesn’t need another chair. Isn’t that right, my rose?” Louis winds an arm around Harry’s waist and smiles as the boy leans back into him. “He’ll sit here, don’t worry about it.”

“Hey, no offense meant,” Max backtracks at once. “It’s bad form to let your piece of ass wander too far, am I right?”

The other men around the table chuckle at that, the laughter only growing when Louis joins in a beat later. After a few seconds the laughter begins to peter out, all except Louis, who continues laughing long after the rest of the room is silent. The tension builds and stomachs sink, until the eeriness of his chuckle is enough to make even Harry a little wary. Finally he stops, rubs his hand across his chin, and says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. See, I was just thinking about how funny you’d look with a broken nose and your thumbs removed, Max.”

Max pales instantly. “Lou, I--”

“You think you can just come in here and run your mouth about my boy?” Louis interrupts coldly, all trace of mocking humor gone from his features. “You call him a piece of ass one more time, I fucking dare you!”

Nick Tromboli pipes in from farther down the table. “I don’t think there was any offense meant, sir.”

“I don’t care what he _meant,_ I care that he’s come into my home and disrespected me!”

“Louis,” warns Zayn from the corner of the room. _Simmer down,_ warns his tone.

Silence falls over the room, thick and heavy and full of fear. Harry gently traces his fingers over Louis’ hand at his waist, drawing in Louis’ attention until he drifts back from the haze of red and thinks to take a grounding breath of air. It smells like Harry, like fresh linen and expensive beer, and Louis clears his throat. “We gonna sit around all day or is someone going to deal?”

Someone deals, and as time passes that tension starts to leak from the room. Drinks are poured, Louis smiles from time to time, and even the shop talk floating around in between hands isn’t doing much to dampen the mood.

“We need to be doing something about these feds,” Nick is saying as he restacks his chips. “It hasn’t been a good year for us. The FBI’s been breathing down our necks on all of our major operations.”

“Something’s not right,” chimes in Pete, New York’s finest jewel thief. “I’m telling ‘ya, something just ain’t right. We got a rat.”

“If we had a rat they’d have taken us down already,” Louis scoffs. “Don’t you think we’d know if we had a rat among us?”

“I know that things have been going sour recently, and we’ve had a lot of new faces coming into play,” Pete counters. “Can’t account for loyalty from all of them. What about you, green-eyes, you been telling stories about your boyfriend to the cops?”

 _“Excuse_ me?” Harry and Louis respond in unison.

Nick has his hands up at once, trying to calm all parties against the spark of anger starting to spread through the room. “Hey now, let’s not get carried away,” he laughs nervously. “Lou, I’m sure he didn’t mean to say that your boy is-”

Pete rises to his feet and cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m saying that we don’t really know too much about this character that’s suddenly got the boss in the palm of his hand.” He reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and comes out with a pistol, which he levels at a spot right between Harry’s eyes. “I think it’s about time we got some answers out of you, boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 2 & 3 (note: 3 chapters total) are written and will be posted later this week!
> 
> canonlarry | tumblr


	2. Chapter 2

Pete reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and comes out with a pistol, which he levels at a spot right between Harry’s eyes. “I think it’s about time we got some answers out of you, boy.”

Suddenly a gunshot rings out through the room, and before the smoke has cleared, Pete can be found on the floor clutching his knee. There’s a neat little hole in the fabric of his trousers and red starts welling up between his fingers even as he howls in pain. “Jesus Christ!” Nick yelps, scrambling to get as far away as possible from what is apparently the line of fire.

Louis calmly places his pistol on the table, ignoring the chaos erupting in the room in favor of soothing Harry, who’s more than a little startled by the sudden gunfire at his expense. “Nobody points a gun at you, ever,” Louis murmurs, taking Harry’s sweaty hands in his own and pressing a kiss to the knuckles. “Ever.”

The poker game is pretty much over forthe night, since it takes several people to get Pete into a car and to a doctor that won’t ask questions, and the rest of the crowd isn’t much in the mood for games anymore. Louis doesn’t mind all that much, since that means he and Harry get to retreat to the sanctuary of his office alone to let Zayn handle the mess. There’s no opposition from the still-dazed Harry either, since it takes all of his functioning awareness just to let himself be led down the hall from the conference room to the office and deposited on the couch there.

“You kneecapped someone for me,” Harry clarifies slowly once he’s had several fortifying sips of the scotch Louis presses into his hand. “He didn’t even touch me, he just threatened to, and you-- you _kneecapped_ him.”

“Of course I did,” answers Louis easily. “I love you. And I promised you I was going to keep you safe, didn’t I? Enemies, coworkers, doesn’t matter who it is. Someone makes a threat against you, I handle it. Period.”

Harry drains the rest of the glass and sets it down on the end table. “Is it weird that I kind of like it?”

At that, Louis cracks his first smile in over an hour. “Oh yeah?”

“Mmm,” Harry hums in response, reaching out to snag one of Louis’ belt loops and tug him closer until Louis is standing right in front of him. “You take such good care of me, Louis.”

Louis doesn’t ever get around to answering that, because Harry’s got his hands at work unfastening Louis’ belt and drawing down the zipper of his trousers. Instead he just combs Harry’s hair back with his fingertips and lets his eyes drift shut as Harry starts to mouth at him through his briefs. It doesn’t take long for him to harden up --it never does, with Harry-- and soon his pants are being pushed down around his thighs so that Harry can slide the length into his hot mouth.

“If I knew guns were such a turn-on for you, I’d take you with me to the firing range on weekends,” Louis laugh-groans with his head thrown back, grinning at the ceiling. “God you’re fantastic.”

“It’s not the guns that turn me on, it’s you,” Harry pulls back long enough to say. Then he’s right back to it, bobbing his head rhythmically and pausing every few times to attempt to take Louis deeper, his throat fluttering against the urge to gag as he tries to swallow the tip down.

He’s just finally managed to press his nose into Louis’ happy trail when a knock sounds at the door and Harry must startle about a foot into the air. He pulls off at once, trying to stifle his gagging with one hand and looking up at Louis with wide eyes. “Boss, you in there?” Zayn calls through the door. “I need to talk to you.”

Louis winces and looks back and forth between the door and the boy holding his cock. “Shit,” he mutters.

“You should probably get that,” Harry whispers as best he can with a wrecked voice. He can feel a smear of spit and what might be precum on his chin. “Might be important.”

“No way he gets too look at you all fucked out like that,” grumbles Louis, but he tucks himself back inside his briefs regardless because of course Harry’s right. “You-- you hide under the desk, yeah?”

The paneling of the desk creates a cubby that hides the legs from view, and is just spacious enough that Harry can fold himself up and be hidden completely. Louis takes one look at himself --the missing belt, the obvious tenting-- and plops himself down in the desk chair so he can scoot his legs beneath the desk and retain at least some semblance of composure. “Come in,” he calls out, somewhat hoarsely.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d gone home already,” Zayn says quietly as he enters. “Liam’s outside the door but he was a little tongue-tied when I asked him.”

Not surprising, since he’d probably been standing there listening to some very conspicuous slurping and groaning noises for the last ten minutes. There’s a silent huff of laughter against Louis’ knee. “I was planning on leaving shortly,” Louis hedges. “Why, what do you need?”

Never one to beat around the bush, Zayn just drops into one of the chairs across Louis’ desk and tugs tiredly at his hair. “You didn’t do yourself any favors shooting Pete tonight. You know that, yeah?”

“I couldn’t afford to let him go unchecked,” Louis defends at once. He gets a little breathy towards the end, due in large part to the warm hands sliding gently up and down his thighs. “He and everybody else needs to know that going after Harry is unacceptable.”

Harry is now trying to carefully take Louis’ cock back out of his boxers beneath the desk without making a sound, which is at least ten times more interesting than Zayn’s grimace. “They know he’s your weakness.”

“Let them know,” Louis fires back. There isn’t enough room for Harry to properly resume his efforts, he probably couldn’t bob if he tried, but there’s space enough at least for Harry to work his fist up and down Louis’ length while he kitten licks at the tip. Combined with the innocent little suckle he gives every few strokes and it’s more than enough to have Louis digging the fingernails of one hand into the arm of his chair and slipping the other beneath the desk to tangle roughly in Harry’s curls. He takes a deep breath and attempts to answer past the beads of sweat at the nape of his neck and the rising tension in his gut. “No one is going to get a hand on him either way, so I could give a rat’s ass if they know how much I love him.”

Harry shivers between his thighs. Zayn shakes his head. “We’re going to have to talk about how this affects our operations. Nicky didn’t like you doing that--”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Zayn, please.” Louis is closer to desperation than he generally prefers to be as the leader of New York’s criminal enterprises, but then again, he’s also closer to orgasm than he generally prefers to be edged.

Maybe Zayn understands on some level, though his eyes blink ignorantly over at Louis. “Of course, sir,” he says calmly, rising from his seat. “I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight,” he adds, making his way to the exit.

“Harry, gonna come,” Louis grunts the instant the door is closed, and before he’s finished the warning he’s coming in Harry’s mouth, hips jerking forward eagerly and hand yanking at Harry’s hair. There’s a loud thunk as Harry hits his head on the underside of the desk in his eagerness to take more of Louis, the hand that isn’t wrapped around his cock scrabbling to take Louis’ at the arm of the chair.

It takes Louis a long moment to come down, but when he does he ever so gently guides Harry off of his cock and scoots the chair back so he can gather him up in a kiss, sucking the taste of himself from Harry’s tongue and kissing his pink lips clean. “You’re something else,” he murmurs when his breath returns to him. “I’m fairly certain you’ll be the death of me, but my dear, sweet rose, you are something else.”

…………………

Despite Louis’ assurances that he couldn’t care less whether or not people knew how much he cared for Harry, he did see the sense the next morning when Zayn suggested that he put a little more manpower into protecting his weak spot. By lunchtime he had announced that Liam was being reassigned from his post as Louis’ bodyguard to a new station as Harry’s, to follow him around day and night and protect him at all costs.

Harry seems little more than bemused by the announcement, while Liam seems downright terrified. Louis doesn’t help ease his trepidation any, standing toe to toe with the much larger man and still managing to stare down his nose at him. “If you let harm come to one hair on his head, you’re a dead man. You hear me? He comes back to me with so much as a scratch, and I will break every bone in your body one by one.”

“Yes, sir,” Liam says quickly. “I mean-- I mean, no, sir. That won’t happen. I would never let that happen.”

Not that Harry apparently needs any help protecting himself. It’s barely a week later that there’s a soft knock on Louis’ office door while he’s browsing some documents and a calm voice calls out, “Lou, can I come in?”

“Harry, baby, of course you can,” Louis answers at once. “What’s up, sweet cheeks, did you miss me?”

But Harry’s is not the first face Louis sees coming through his door. Instead, it’s the terrified face of a man at gunpoint, being sheperded into the office by none other than Harry himself. “I brought you a present,” Harry says sanguinely. “He came up to the desk and asked for an audience with you and I could see the wire through his shirt. I smashed the bug and figured I’d bring the snitch to you, if he wanted to talk to you so badly.”

The man’s shirt is unbuttoned, and there are telltale rectangles of tape still sticking to his skin. Louis feels a rush of pride well up in his chest. “Baby, how thoughtful of you! You know how I love the smell of a rat frying in the morning. Thank you, gorgeous.” He gestures to Liam, who’s been hanging back in the doorway this whole time, and lets him take the scared man by the arm so he can let his guard down and kiss Harry deeply. “Liam, take him downstairs and call the Irishman. Have him get as creative as he wants with this schmuck, but make sure he keeps him alive long enough to give up what he knows.”

“I can have Gino do that for you, sir,” Liam replies. “So that I don’t have to leave my post with Mr. Styles.”

“No, no, that’s quite alright,” Louis is quick to say. “Do what I told you to do, and don’t even think about coming back into this office for another half an hour. That’s an order. Capisce?”

Liam smirks knowingly before he leads the man out of the room, but he does obey in making a hasty escape and shutting the door behind him. Harry saunters forward a step until he’s snuggled right up against Louis. “What, have you got big plans for the next thirty minutes or something?”

Louis takes him by the waist and lets the heat from Harry’s body soak into his palms. “Mmm. About six feet of them.”

Harry is the first one to lean into the kiss, but the way Louis immediately responds  by backing Harry up until the backs of his thighs collide with the desk. “Easy, tiger,” Harry giggles, though he doesn’t seem to mind. His hands come up to cradle Louis’ face, deepening the kiss and pulling him ever closer.

His words do nothing to discourage Louis. Strong hands are slipping beneath Harry’s thighs and hoisting him up onto the desk, quickly moving on to the fasten of his jeans. “You’re perfect, you know that?” Louis purrs as he tosses Harry’s belt aside. “You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, and you take no shit. Tell me how you can be all that and still sweet as Texas tea.”

“It’s a gift,” Harry answers distractedly. He’s wiggling his hips excitedly, stomach fluttering as his cock starts to harden in anticipation. Finally Louis gets his jeans unzipped and slips a hand inside to cup Harry’s cock through his briefs, feeling Harry arch up into the touch. “Should have just taken me home,” Harry says breathily.

“Couldn’t wait that long,” Louis returns immediately, tugging Harry’s jeans down his legs. “Besides, wouldn’t be very professional of us to leave the office in the middle of the day.”

“Oh, but this _is_ professional?”

It really isn’t, because Harry’s now naked from the waist down perched upon Louis’ desk, and Louis is sucking a lovebite into the inside of his thigh while he fumbles blindly for the petroleum jelly he’s taken to keeping in the drawer of his desk. He finds it at last and twists off the lid to coat his fingers without ever stopping his assault on the smooth expanse of Harry’s skin. “I’m the boss, I make the rules,” he murmurs as he starts to press his fingers into Harry.

Harry would very much like to quibble about who calls the shots here, given that he’s yet to have been denied a single thing since coming to New York and happening across the man he loves, but it’s hard to think of clever things to say when Louis’ fingers are so, well, clever. He knows every inch of Harry, knows just how to stretch him out and get him taking two, then three fingers. He knows just how to press on the place inside Harry that will make him arch up off the desk and moan louder than he probably should in a room with people walking by just on the other side of the door.

Louis closes his eyes and licks a stripe up the length of Harry’s cock, smirking a little as he reaches the tip and tastes precum gathering there. “You ready for me?” he asks, voice huskier than normal.

“Yeah, yeah, please,” Harry answers with a desperate wiggle of his hips.

Not wasting any time, Louis pulls back immediately, tugging Harry off the desk and spinning him around. It only takes a little kiss to the back of his neck before Harry gets the message and folds himself in half, resting his weight on his elbows on the desk with his legs spread and bum in the air, on display for Louis. Louis’ cock gives a twitch in the tight confines of his trousers and Louis spares a second to palm himself through the fabric just once before he’s fumbling with the fly and pushing his briefs down around his thighs. His cock springs free and slaps against his belly and he sucks in air through his teeth with a hiss, suddenly not caring so much that he’s barely undressed. It’s good enough, it’s enough that he can be inside of Harry--

And then he is, pressing slowly inside of Harry and letting out a low groan at how good he feels, how good he always feels. The muscles in Harry’s back are tense but he takes it like a champ, arching his back and breathing through the discomfort until Louis has rocked all the way inside of him. “Jesus Christ,” he says weakly, voice muffled in the cradle of his arms, chest heaving with the effort of relaxing into the intrusion. “Jesus _Christ.”_

“I thought good southern boys didn’t take the lord’s name in vain,” Louis teases lightly, one hand firm on Harry’s hip while the other trails soothingly up and down the tense muscles of his side.

“They don’t beg to be fucked by mafia bosses, either, I don’t think.” Harry’s voice is breathy and high, perhaps a little drunk on the feeling of fullness. “Guess I’m not a good boy.”

“That’s alright, I like bad boys, too,” Louis croons. He isn’t even thinking when he pulls back his hand and brings it down against Harry’s bum with a smack, but then Harry is gasping and bucking back into Louis and the tone is changing in an instant. Suddenly Louis is moving, fucking into Harry hard and deep and rough, and Harry is fumbling for a grip on the edge of the desk to anchor him against the force of Louis’ thrusts.

Harry’s going to have bruises on his thighs tomorrow, Louis finds himself thinking as he looks down to watch himself sliding in and out of Harry. The front of his thighs are pressed up against the edge of the desk, being driven forward over and over again right into the harsh angle. He’ll have pretty little bruises right across the front of his thighs for Louis to kiss over and apologize for and not feel a whit of regret for making.

The thought is a little too much for Louis to handle and his orgasm builds quickly in his belly, nails digging into Harry’s hips as he thrusts in deep and comes, hissing in relief as he empties himself into Harry. It doesn’t seem to bother Harry, who brings a hand down beneath his body to tug himself off quickly. For a second his breath stutters as he’s held on the precipice and then he’s coming too, clenching around Louis and making the older man swear as an aftershock comes over him with enough force to make him grit his teeth.

A shudder runs through Harry when at last Louis pulls out, his cum starting to run down the inside of Harry’s thigh over the bite marks purpling there from earlier. “I love you,” Louis says simply. That just about says it all.

Harry attempts to push himself up with his messy hand, making a further mess of the surely ruined papers trapped beneath him. He gives up quickly and instead rests his face against the cool wood of the desk. “I know,” he simply replies. “I know you do.”

…………………

It isn’t something that Louis would ever admit publicly, but he’s grown rather fond of waking up next to Harry. Mornings have always been the bane of his existence; to come from blissful sleep and have to face a world full of terrible things is an awfully cruel transition. It gets a little less awful, though, when you get to wake up next to someone you love. _Everything_ gets better when you get to wake up next to someone you love.

Louis feels the sunlight from the window warming up his bones, slowly drawing him from his slumber and into the lazy Sunday atmosphere. One hand reaches out to creep across the mattress, seeking the smooth warmth of Harry’s skin, fingertips tingling in anticipation of raising goosebumps along his beautiful curves.

But his hand never comes across anything but cold sheets, and Louis blearily lifts his head from the pillow with a wholly dissatisfied yawn. “Baby, come back to bed,” he calls, all three of his functioning brain bells hoping that it’ll summon the man from wherever in his apartment he’s wandered to. “Unless you’re making breakfast,” he tacks on as an afterthought. “If you’re making breakfast you should finish that and then bring it back to bed with you.”

Harry doesn’t answer. A minute has barely passed before Louis’ stomach and his curiosity have him struggling up from the mattress and out of bed, pulling on briefs and a tee shirt --too big, must be Harry’s-- and shuffling out into the hallway of the apartment, only to stop dead in his tracks the second he’s through the doorway.

He can see at the end of the hall a pale arm on the floor, flopped over, unmoving. Louis’ stomach drops. “No,” he whispers, heart immediately beating in doubletime but feet refusing to move faster than a snail’s pace as he walks down the hall towards it. “No, my god, please no--”

It’s Liam. Louis sees the body attached to the arm as he rounds the corner and instantly feels guilty even as he breathes a sigh of relief that it isn’t Harry lying there. In the next instant he’s dropping to his knees, scrabbling at Liam’s throat until he finds the pulse that still beats steadily beneath his skin. Not dead, just unconscious.

Only then does Louis notice the piece of paper lying next to Liam’s body. It’s a photo of he and Harry, taken candidly through a frame of leaves, laughing and leaning into each other with their ever-present fond smiles. Someone has taken the photo and kissed Harry’s cheek, a pale pink swak on the image of his skin standing out against the stark black and white.

“The kiss of death,” Louis whispers with dread. It’s a symbol that’s been used by the mafia for generations, a kiss on the cheek to mark one for dead, a final farewell to someone doomed to die at the hand of an assassin. It was a message, left for someone they knew would understand it.

Louis is up in an instant, tearing through the apartment, calling Harry’s name until he’s hoarse. He opens up every room and closet, every tiny cupboard, searching for any trace of him until finally he collapses on the couch, knees too weak to hold him up under the dawning realization.

Harry’s been taken.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *audience gasps dramatically*
> 
> canonlarry | tumblr


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: louis being a stone cold boss ass bitch ahead hold onto your hats the feels coaster is in motion

Louis’ on the phone with Zayn before the raw fear has even settled in his gut. The line connects and he doesn’t even give the man time to answer. “Harry’s apartment, _now._ Bring the Irishman. Harry’s been taken.”

Zayn gives a quick ‘yes, sir’ and hangs up. Louis slams the receiver back down into the cradle and returns to Liam’s side,. “Liam, wake up,” he says firmly, tapping his palm against Liam’s cheek. “Liam. Liam, I need you to wake up. _Wake up.”_

After a moment Liam groans and opens his eyes, one hand lifting up to grab his head and coming away with blood on his fingertips. “Think they got me from behind, boss,” he slurs weakly, eyes drifting shut once more. “I’m so sorry boss, I should have-- is Harry--?”

“They took him,” Louis answers, and watches fear dawn on Liam’s face. “It’s not your fault,” he sighs before Liam can speak. “You’re lucky to be alive. You’re bleeding out all over the floor, I’m not going to get mad at you for that.”

“I’ll find him, sir, I swear to you I will--”

“Shut your mouth. You’ll go to the office and call our doctor and you’ll let him patch you up. I’m bringing in the Irishman to handle it.”

“He’s going to leave a trail of destruction if you put him on this,” Liam frowns. “No way you’re going to keep this under wraps.”

“He can lead a trail of dead bodies right to my door for all I care,” answers Louis coldly, “as long as he brings Harry back to me.”

…………………

The Irishman, as he’s called in hushed tones from California to China and everywhere in between, is the best of the best.

Louis Tomlinson is the master of fear, certainly; he uses it every day to bend others to his will, to manipulate circumstances and environments until he can get what he wants. But when it comes to _inspiring_ fear, that’s the specialty of the Irishman. No one seems to know anything about him beyond his country of origin, or at least anyone who does is smart enough to keep their mouth shut. Some say he’s a former spy turned freelancer. Others say he’s a madman. Everyone, however, agrees that if there’s something to be found or information to be extracted, no one does it better than the Irishman.

He appears in the corner of Louis’ office seemingly out of shadows, staring at Louis with knowing blue eyes and waiting to be noticed. “Tomlinson,” he says simply when Louis looks up at last. “I hear you have another job for me.”

“Your new top priority, I don’t care about cost.” Louis pulls out a thin file marked ‘Harry Styles’ and slaps it on the desk for the Irishman to come and retrieve. “My boyfriend was kidnapped last night, snatched right out of his bed.”

“No security?”

“Personal bodyguard, highly experienced. He never saw them coming. He’s with a doctor right now getting a dozen stitches in the side of his head.” He rubs a hand over his eyes tiredly. How is only nine in the morning? “I was laying right there next to him and I didn’t even wake up.”

Blue eyes flick up from file to boss, then back again as if nothing happened. “Shouldn’t blame yourself. They got the drop on a professional security detail and extracted him silently. They’re pros.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t make me feel better as long as my partner is still missing,” Louis snaps. It’s an unfair tone to take. The Irishman doesn’t bring it up.

“Do you have any leads?” the blonde man continues calmly, flicking through the file. “Someone from his past?”

“No chance. He was innocent when he came to me, he has no enemies of his own. The only reason anyone would hurt him is to hurt me.”

Silence drags on for a long minute, until finally the Irishman rolls up the file and sticks it in the inside pocket of his overcoat. “You’ve put three men in your basement for me to play with over the last month, all of them rats. I’m sure one of them knows something, if you know how to push.”

“And you know how to push.” It isn’t a question.

The man nods in answer anyways, a deceptively bright grin taking over his features. “Better than anybody.”

The lead comes two days later, ironically out of the man who’d been caught by Harry himself. He’s brought back into Louis’ office looking considerably worse for wear, with just about every part of his face swollen or bruised in some way or another. He sings like a canary, though. “It’s one of your guys,” he tells Louis, “someone close to you. I don’t know who, he never said his name. He’s working with the feds to bring you down. The cops think that he’s going to help destroy the organization for good, but he’s planning on double crossing them and taking the organization for himself once they arrest you.”

“That’s why they kidnapped Harry instead of just killing you in your bed,” the Irishman chimes in. “They want you keyed up, making mistakes. You screw up and land yourself in jail, and he takes over your enterprise. If you die the whole thing crumbles and he’s got nothing to take over.”

Louis’ jaw clenches; to think that one of his own is responsible, that someone he’s broken bread with has kidnapped the love of my life-- “And how do you fit into this, scumbag?” he asks the man shaking in the center of the room. “What got you thinking it was a good idea to cross me?”

“I got a phone call. I couldn’t tell whose voice it was but he said he was planning on taking your job and that I should pretend to cooperate with the cops. Said if I didn’t, he’d make sure I went to jail with you”

“Get him out of here,” Louis orders in disgust, gesturing the musclemen hanging back to lead their prisoner away. “He lives until we find Harry and then we put him underneath three feet of concrete at a construction site, understand?”

The men and the rat go, but the Irishman remains. “I don’t want to get your hopes up,” he starts, then hesitates. “It might be nothing.”

That gets Louis’ attention. “Do you have a lead? I don’t care about my hopes, tell me.”

“We tracked down a property this guy owns over in Jersey. I don’t know if whoever he’s working for picked his own place to take Harry, but--”

“It can’t hurt to look,” Louis says at once. “Go, take as many of my men as you want. I’m going to make some phone calls, talk to my guy over at Justice, see if he knows the name of the man working with the feds.” He stops and takes a deep breath before looking at the Irishman with an expression too earnest to be anything but completely honest. “Please bring him back to me.”

…………………

It’s too dark to be real, Harry can’t help but find himself thinking. It has to have been days now since he was taken, chloroformed in his sleep and dragged from his own home and dumped in this closet somewhere. At least it feels like days-- there’s actually no way to tell in here. There’s no light whatsoever, not even coming from beneath the door. The only things in the room are Harry and a bucket to piss in, as well as a single bottle of water he finds rolled into a corner as he’s searching for a way out.

“If you’re planning on keeping me alive, you’ll have to feed me at some point!” Harry thinks he shouts into the void at some point, but the water is long gone and the dehydration is starting to fray his mind to the point where he isn’t sure whether he actually spoke aloud or not. Every so often he’ll hear footsteps or muffled voices through the walls, a single thread of sanity keeping hope alive. He keeps telling himself that they’ll come bring him food and water soon, that they haven’t just thrown him in here to die, because the alternative is far too much to bear.

At one point in the seemingly endless night, commotion breaks out beyond Harry’s four little walls. There’s what sounds like gunfire, shouting voices, running footsteps and the unmistakable thud of burly bodies hitting the ground. Harry only shrinks farther back from the door, dread blooming in his gut as the commotion grows closer. This is it then, the resolution, the moment they’ll come to finish him off. Something big is clearly happening and that means it’s time for loose ends to be trimmed --Harry among them.

Suddenly the door swings wide and someone shines a flashlight into the room, searing Harry’s eyes in the process. “If you think kidnapping me is going to take down Louis Tomlinson, you’re wrong,” he spits, far more bravely than he feels. “He’s going to destroy you, you hear me? He will stop at nothing to bring you down!”

The flashlight is set on end on the floor, casting a soft light throughout the closet instead of blinding Harry, and now he can see the face of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man crouching before him with his hands out like Harry is a wild animal in need of soothing. “You must be Harry,” he says, voice thick with an Irish accent. “Are you hurt?”

Harry just blinks at him a few times in confusion. “Are you-- who are you?”

“My name is Niall,” the man says gently, “and I’m here to rescue you.”

…………………

Louis is pacing up and down the length of his office, the cradle of the phone clutched in one hand and the receiver pressed between ear and shoulder so he can have a hand free to angrily wave his empty brandy glass. “No, you listen to me! I don’t care if it isn’t your department, you find someone whose department it is and you figure out what they know. Do you understand me? I don’t keep you on my payroll for you to sit on your ass and do nothing for me. If I don’t get him back, I’ll-- I’ll--”

“You’ll what?” asks a soft voice from the door.

Louis whips around and almost drops his glass in surprise. He does drop the phone, barely even noticing the way it shatters to smithereens amidst the rush of relief coursing through him. “Harry,” he breathes, surging forward and collecting the boy’s face in his hands at once to kiss him fiercely. “Oh, baby. Baby, baby. Are you alright? Fuck, I’m so glad to see you. Are you alright? I love you.”

Harry smiles even past the evident exhaustion greying his face. “I love you too. I’m okay. I’m starving and there are four of you in front of me, but I’ll be okay.” He leans into Louis and lets the smaller man support him, wrapped up in Louis’ arms and trusting that he’s got Harry.

He absolutely has Harry. “Sweetheart, why don’t you sit down, let me get you something to eat?”

“Stay with me,” Harry blurts at once. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Louis rushes to assure. “I don’t have a thing to do tonight except sit with you, baby, I promise.”

And that’s what he does, for hours, even after Liam has brought food enough for an army and Harry has fallen asleep before Louis can suggest going home to bed. Louis lays him down on the couch and covers him with a blanket so he won’t catch cold, finally allowing himself to rise from Harry’s side and stretch his aching joints. A soft knock sounds at the door.

Louis opens the door to find Liam, looking quite tired himself but determined not to fail at his job again. “The Irishman has delivered the man in charge to the basement,” he says in a hushed tone. “He told me to tell you that payment is due in full in 48 hours.”

“He still around?”

“Gone, sir.”

It isn’t surprising news; the Irishman is rarely anywhere he isn’t paid to be. Louis rubs a hand across his tired eyes and glances back over his shoulder at Harry, who slumbers on obliviously. “Watch him,” he quietly orders Liam, stepping out into the hallway and closing the door behind him. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Liam doesn’t say a word, just nods and steps in front of the office door as Louis walks away in the direction of the basement. It isn’t often that Louis goes down there, since that was where the dirty work tended to happen and Louis preferred to stay above all that. Sometimes, though, if you want a job done right you have to do it yourself.

It’s cold down here, and dark, which seems appropriately foreboding given that those sent down here rarely emerge in one piece. There’s a single bare bulb hanging in the center, just above where a man is bound to a support beam with his hands behind his back and his head hung with either shame or exhaustion.

“Who is it, then?” Louis asks from the bottom of the stairs. “Who thought they were going to get away with coming after me?”

Of all the faces he’s expecting to see when the man lifts his head to look at him, Louis isn’t expecting Nick’s. “I didn’t have a choice, Lou,” he defends himself at once. “I belong at the head of this organization. I had to make a move if I wanted control.”

“You had a fucking choice, Nick, you chose to betray me for your own fucking agenda!” Louis reaches back and pulls his handgun from the small of his back, whipping it around to point right at Nick. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t empty this gun between your eyes.”

Nick pales at once. “I’ve got a family, you know them. You’ve met my wife, you’re the godfather of one of my kids. I’ve worked by your side your whole life. And I never --I _never_ \-- intended to hurt you in any of this. I wanted you gone, not dead, you have to believe me in that. Louis, please, don’t do this.”

“Those are all pretty good reasons,” Louis says quietly.  “But _no one_ fucks with my baby.”

Somewhere upstairs, Harry rolls over on the couch as six loud bangs ring out through the quiet. He doesn’t wake up, though, not even when the man he loves comes in soft as a whisper and kisses his cheek, brushing back his curls and murmuring, “Sleep sweet, my rose. I’ve got you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it! Shoutout once again to Hallie Delaydeniall (I made up her new url for her... B) just sayin I'm awesome) who deserves many mafia AUs to be written in her name. Enjoy seventeen!
> 
> canonlarry | tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters 2 & 3 (note: 3 chapters total) are written and will be posted later this week!
> 
> canonlarry | tumblr


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